We absolutely love photographing Elopements at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise!

We met in 2012 at our University gym in our final year of our undergraduate degrees. Although he’s incredibly quiet and we hadn’t exchanged 10 words with one another, Landon would periodically bring me heavier weights when he noticed I wasn’t challenging myself as much as I could. This is where it all started.

 Neither Landon or I would explain our story as “Love at First sight.” We had fun getting to know each other at the gym and became friends first. Landon says “that way it’s like we started out on our 10th date.” I eventually noticed that every time I was with Landon I laughed – I couldn’t think of a time I had spent with him where he hadn’t cracked a joke or done something else that made me smile. We started dating just before graduation, April 2013.

We did the long-distance thing for a few months while I was in Edmonton for school and Landon was in Lethbridge working as an accountant. I eventually moved back to Lethbridge to be closer to Landon where I started a new graduate program and we moved in together.. 4 months after we started dating. Over the next three years we moved a few more times, travelled a bit, each changed careers, and in 2016 built our first house together so that we could get our French Bulldog, Linus. Through career changes, moves, and personal challenges, a few things have stayed consistent – we look out for one another’s best interest, unconditionally support each other and we laugh together every single day. Laughter is the foundation of our relationship.

We were engaged on my (Jillian’s) 29th birthday 02/02/2020 at 2:02. A palindrome: the date reads the same forwards as is does backwards. As someone who loves numbers, this couldn’t have been more perfect, and is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Landon involved our best bud, Linus, and kept it low key at home – one of our favourite places to be.

Wedding Planning Details: Soon after getting engaged we planned a small wedding celebration in Phoenix, AZ with our family and closest friends. When the borders closed in March, we, like many others, had to pivot our plans. It took a little while for us to decide what we would do, as the thought of planning another wedding wasn’t something we were too excited about. We had never planned for a big wedding, so a COVID celebration was still possible for us without having to make significant changes to our guest list. Our wedding was an intimate family elopement at the Chateau Lake Louise in October. There were 24 of us total and we had a close family friend officiate. We kept things simple, without any particular theme, and leveraged the natural beauty of Lake Louise. We ordered simple floral arrangements from “Flowers at the Market” located within the Calgary Farmers Market, rented chairs from Rocky Mountain Event rentals, and kept interior decor minimal. We stuck with our plans to have our ceremony outdoors, despite it being an uncharacteristically cold weekend in mid-October. Although it was cold (-15 before the windchill!) we couldn’t have asked for a better backdrop: the snow was falling and the ground and trees were snow covered, but the lake hadn’t frozen yet.

Favourite Parts of Your Wedding Day/Favourite Details: The location! Lake Louise is beautiful and we are so fortunate to have such an idyllic location in our backyard. Neither of us can sing anything but praise when we reflect on our experience at the Chateau – we were treated SO well by each of the staff at the Fairmont and they truly made our wedding weekend special. It felt like such a treat to have a weekend getaway with our families during what had been an odd year.

Honeymoon Plans: When we’re able we will go back to Hawaii. The Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui is our favourite vacation spot and we’d like to try the Fairmont Orchid on the big island next time too.

Advice for Couples: Find someone who you can be yourself with, laugh as much as you can together, dance even though you know your partner is watching, and everything else will fall into place.